Coffee
by Issy
Summary: Sequel to 'Cheese.' Sylvia Fawcett has survived Christmas and the Yule Ball, but now she faces Valentine's Day, Cedric Diggory's woeful charmwork and her sister Sabina. But as long as she has Edmund and her dictionary , she'll be fine... she hopes.
1. Cappuccino

Disclaimer: I don't own one hair on Harry Potter's head. Or any other character in the series. It all belongs to JK Rowling. Likewise, _The Cynic's Dictionary_ and the website I-cynic dot com belong to Rick Bayan (source of the definitions for flirting, celibacy, taboo, foundation grants, poetry and power) and _The Devil's Dictionary_ belongs to Ambrose Bierce (source of the definitions for saint, jealousy, logic and snogging.) I am also proud _not_ to own a rabbit that plays the banjo, as I am sure it would be a nuisance.

A/N: A big thank you to my SQ beta reader, Igenlode Wordsmith!

Also, for readers on fanfiction dot net, this chapter contains some obscure mathematical symbols and I'm not sure how well they've shown up. For some reason, the site doesn't seem to like the equals symbol (in particular), so if you come across a jerky sentence in the Arithmancy section of this chapter, that's way. I've tried to fix them manually in QuickEdit with 'equals' but I might have missed one or two. For an unadulterated version, read this chapter on the Sugar Quill (sugarquill dot net.)

**Chapter One - Cappuccino**

Flirting: Wiggling one's toe in the pool while fantasizing about a swim in the deep end. In the contemporary workplace, likely grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit.

"If that girl looks at you _one more time_," I grated, "I'll have her guts for garters."

Edmund quirked an eyebrow at me, grinning (the Actual Edmund grin, of course, not the Ravenclaw grin. The Ravenclaw grin is reserved for Professor Flitwick and all those that think Edmund is some form of saint - though why they think Edmund is a dead sinner revised and edited is beyond me). "Jealous, darling?"

"Bierce says that you can only be jealous if you are unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping."

He sighed. "Giving you _The Devil's Dictionary_ was the worst mistake I ever made, Sylvia."

"No. Giving me a clarinet would have been the worst mistake you ever made, because then I would have had to force you, as my boyfriend, to listen to me play." I sipped my coffee and grinned right back at him.

"And then I would have had to become celibate." He clasped one hand to his chest and gave a pathetic sigh.

"I'm sure you would have enjoyed a respite from the pleasures and perils of romantic congress, even if it did mean adopting a way of life traditionally practiced by Catholic priests, monks, Shakers, stamp collectors, overly zealous careerists, _Transfiguration Today _fans, hermits and amoebas," I quipped.

"You didn't answer my question," he countered. "Are you jealous?"

I glanced venomously at the girl in question, who was now flicking her hair invitingly at Edmund. She was a Gryffindor and I was pretty sure she was a fourth-year, but I couldn't remember her name. She was sitting at a table with a sandy haired boy I thought was called Seamus Finnigan, but she wasn't paying any attention to him. Instead, she was mooning at Edmund. _My_ Edmund.

"Yes," I answered bitterly, staring into my cup of coffee - which was now littered with pink confetti thanks to Madam Puddifoot's oh-so-adorable cherubs. Seriously, I love them. The blood pouring down my chin? No, I didn't bite my tongue. Not at all. Whatever would make you think I don't like Madam Puddifoot's oh-so-adorable cherubs?

I think you know how much I hate Christmas. Multiply that by seven hundred and five and you will have an approximate total as to how much I hate Valentine's Day.

Edmund reached across the table and took my hand, his eyes dancing with laughter. "Sylvia, Sylvia, Sylvia," he said. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Take me away from all this pink and these stupid staring silly bints," I grumbled, tossing back my coffee and choking on the confetti.

Edmund slapped me on the back and handed me a glass of water after he fished out the rose petals floating on the top. "She's only looking, you know, and that's not taboo," he told me reasonably. "It's not like she's served pork rinds at a Hasidic wedding or answered the question 'how are you?' in the negative."

"I know," I replied, sipping the water slowly. "It's just… I'm envious, that's all."

Edmund took some Galleons out of his pocket and put them on the table. "You're not envious," he told me, smiling. "Envy is the meanest form of emulation. Anyway, you have nothing to be envious of. _You're_ my girlfriend, Sylvia, not -" he glanced over his shoulder, "- Lavender Brown. Come on, let's go."

"If she persists in staring at you," I asked hopefully, "can I Transfigure her? Please?"

Edmund chuckled. "Perhaps you'd better wait until you begin illicit experiments with genetic engineering," he said, putting his arm around me and steering me out of the horrid pink-and-cherub-ness of Madam Puddifoot's.

"But I might develop a miracle counter spell for the Killing curse!"

"You also might develop a rabbit that plays the banjo. Or worse, the clarinet."

* * *

"Has Cedric got any ideas yet on what they're going to nick for the Second Task?" Edmund asked me as we tramped back up to the school. 

I sighed. "No. He's been sitting in the common room staring alternately at the fire and that bloody egg for days. Nearly everyone in Hufflepuff knows the words of that bloody poem now."

"I don't know how he expects to work it out," Edmund said. "Aside from the obvious bits, the whole thing seems to make as much sense as a foundation grant. Bourgeois beneficence that enables unmarketable artists to continue expressing their contempt for bourgeois values."

I laughed. "And what a wonderful cycle it is."

"So what _were _the words of the poem?" Edmund asked.

Ah, poetry. A form of expression peculiar to the Land Beyond The Magazines.

_"Come seek us where our voices sound,_

_"We cannot sing above the ground,_

_"And while you're searching, ponder this:_

_"We've taken what you'll sorely miss,_

_"An hour long you'll have to look,_

_"And to recover what we took,_

_"But past an hour - the prospect's black_

_"Too late, it's gone, it won't come back,"_ I quoted.

"Well, let's try it logically," he said. "Underwater, yes?"

"Check."

"Nicking stuff, yes?"

"Check."

"An hour to find it, yes?"

"Check."

"Don't find it in an hour, it's not coming back, yes?"

"Check."

"You know what this proves?"

"Not very much?"

"Well it proves that logic really is the art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding, but 'not very much' works for me."

I grinned, tightening my arm round his waist. "Hurrah for the cool Ravenclaw intellect," I said softly.

"Hurrah indeed," he replied, grinning, as he pulled me into the hedge for some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding. Or snogging. I can rarely differentiate.

* * *

I am a student of Arithmancy, and as such, am familiar with many difficult concepts. For example, magic equals teaching x talent (luck + force)², or Snape equalsgit³ - redemption (Dumbledore x squeamishness) / Slytherin, where Slytherin is equal to pure-blood (½ambition + ¼cunning). However, the equation that could be applied to the evening of February 14, 1995, was very simple. 

My twin + Edmund's twin equalssnogging.

That's right. Walking back up to the Hufflepuff common room that night (sans Edmund), I ran across Sabina and Archie standing in a niche in the wall. Snogging.

This equalsdisturbing.

Even more disturbing than Laboratory/Lavatory/Lav-whatever-her-name-is Brown making moogly eyes at Edmund, which is saying something.

Being a prefect, I have broken up many a snogging couple in my day. Although it would be very funny to burst in on them, yell, 'you're _nicked!'_ or something similar and clap them in irons, the usual method is to cough politely, take house points and then send them on their merry way (pretending you don't know they'll just find another place to engage in their nefarious activities.)

However, it is slightly more difficult to be professional and objective when said snoggers are your sister and your boyfriend's brother. This situation equalsembarrassing. In fact, this situation equalsembarrassing².

Yet there is an upside, due to the fact that power equalsability to make fellow humans squirm, sweat and stammer on demand. This equalsgood, which means power equals good (QED) - and who am I to pass up a good thing?

"Sabina!"

Excellent. Now Sabina red.

"Sylvia - I - please -"

Merlin tap dancing naked on top of Ben Nevis.

My jaw dropped. "Sabina, how _could_ you?"

Without a doubt, that line equalscorny. However, at that point, Sylvia equalsshocked.

Sabina hadn't been snogging Archie at all. She was snogging _Kenneth Towler._

If Sabina + Archie equalsdisturbing, Sabina + Kenneth Towler equalsdisturbing³. Not to mention Sabina + Kenneth Towler equalsArchie x broken heart.

Sabina wasn't red any more. She had gone white as a sheet. "Sylvia…"

"Does Archie know?" I demanded.

Sabina looked down. "Well…"

"He doesn't," I said flatly.

"Not as such."

"So you went and snogged Bulbadox Boy here without even _hinting_ to Archie that you were getting sick of the relationship?"

"Hey!" Kenneth objected.

"Shut up, Towler," I snapped.

"You shouldn't talk to him like that!" Sabina said indignantly.

"Well, you shouldn't treat Archie like that! He'll be broken-hearted when he finds out!"

"He's not _going_ to find out!"

I stared. Sylvia equalsshocked x disgusted.

"He's not going to find out," Sabina repeated.

"If you think for one minute I'll let you do that to Archie," I said, "at the risk of sounding like Mum, you've got another think coming."

Sabina went even whiter. "You _can't_ tell him, Sylvia! He'll be so angry!"

"Well, you should have bloody thought about that before you went and snogged Bulbadox Boy!"

"Hey!" Kenneth interjected again.

"Shut _up_, Towler! Archie's a good bloke, Sabina, and I won't let you go round cheating on him!"

"You _can't_ tell him! He'll hate me!"

"You're the Ravenclaw," I shot back. "Maybe you should have used that much vaunted intelligence of yours to consider the consequences before sneaking off behind Archie's back!"

"Now hang on a minute -" Kenneth began.

"Stay out of this, Towler," I snapped.

Kenneth's lips were pursed so tightly he looked like a young male version of McGonagall with bad hair. "You wouldn't care so much about this if I hadn't asked you to the Yule Ball."

I raised my eyebrows. That comment equalsridiculous.

"If you hadn't noticed, Towler, I happen to have a boyfriend. I am by no means pining after you."

"Bet you wouldn't care so much if you weren't snogging Archie's brother," Sabina muttered under her breath.

"That's stupid and you know it!" I took a deep breath and forced myself to come down. "Fact is, Sabina, that I'm a Hufflepuff, and I'm loyal. I'm not just going to turn my back on the fact that you're stringing Archie along."

"What happened to loyalty to your sister?" Sabina snapped back.

That comment equalslow blow.

"That doesn't deserve a response," I said. "Now look, are you going to tell Archie, or am I?"

Sabina sighed. "Look… I'll tell him, I promise. Just give me some time, okay?"

"That's open ended. 'Some time' could mean thirty or forty years."

"Give me a month."

I snorted. "I'll give you three days."

"Two weeks."

"A week."

"Ten days."

"Done."

"And… don't tell Edmund."

I stared incredulously. "Sabina, he's my boyfriend! I tell him everything!" (Well, just about everything - I have not been able to bring myself to admit that I took ballet lessons for seven years.)

"You _can't_ tell him!" Sabina pleaded. "Archie is his brother! He'd tell him straight away!"

I sighed. "Fine. But if you haven't told Archie by the 24th of February, I'll spill the beans to both of them."

Sabina let out a breath. "Thanks, Sylvia."

"I'd say don't mention it, but it would be a lie. Get out of my sight before I _do_ mention it."

I stood in the corridor for a long time after Sabina and Kenneth had hurried off. This entire situation equalsawkward. I felt like a combination of some horrendous character from _Black Magic_ on WWN and a righteous little prig.

How could I have ever even contemplated the notion that power equalsgood when it is obvious that power leads to bloody awkward situations?


	2. Latte

**Chapter Two - Latte**

Some people never quite recover from the realisation that the world is not a happy place full of fluffy bunnies and Gryffindors and Slytherins frolicking together in the meadows, but it is in fact a cruel place where the Gryffindors and Slytherins grow up into nasty Aurors and nastier Death Eaters and the fluffy bunnies are baked in pies. Interestingly, the greater majority of these people do not grow up to become cruel themselves. Instead, they become cynics.

I remember quite clearly the moment when I was set on the path to cynicism. In fact, it's my earliest memory - I was only two years old at the time. It was November 2, 1981, and my parents, Sabina and I were having breakfast (read: my parents were sensibly eating marmalade on toast while Sabina and I threw pureed pears at each other). The _Daily Prophet_ owl soared through the window and dropped the paper. My mother picked it up, unfolded it, glanced at the headline, and immediately burst into tears. It was the day the world found out about the death of the Potters and the miraculous survival of their little boy Harry - though I didn't understand that at the time. All I knew was that my mummy was crying - and I hadn't thought there was anything in the world that could make my mummy cry.

I found out much later that Lily Potter had been several years beneath my mother at school, and my mother had helped her out with her Arithmancy assignments. She hadn't been the only one of my mother's school friends that had died in the war, but my mother's reaction to her death stuck in my two-year-old mind and stayed there. It was then I realised that the world wasn't perfect - and I started down the not-so-rose-strewn path to cynicism.

The realisation that my sister - my own twin sister, my genetic identical - could do something as loathsome as be unfaithful to the eternally loyal Archie Stebbins was another moment like that. I've never been much of a brooder - it's not really a very Hufflepuff trait - but I practically gained a degree in it in the few days after the incident in the hallway. These three days of broody moping only taught me one thing - brooding is bloody useless. Have you ever noticed that your real thoughts - what you _really_ believe - is the one thing you can never figure out? You think you know, but you never really do.

By the time I emerged from my black broody mood, it was February 17. Three days had already passed since I gave Sabina my ultimatum, but nothing had really changed. Archie was still Captain Cheerful, so Sabina obviously hadn't done anything; and I still felt like a cross between a soapie character and Joan of Arc. Obviously, problems don't go away if you hide your head under the pillow. Or, in my case, under my dictionaries.

"Sylvia, is something wrong?" Edmund asked me that afternoon, catching up to me after my last class of the day. "I haven't seen you since V-Day."

I shook my head slightly. "I'm all right. Just… bogged down, you know? OWLs and all that. Professor Vector gave us a pile of Arithmancy homework as tall as Everest."

Edmund raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Bollocks. He didn't believe me.

New Rule #1 Regarding Miss S. Fawcett (Hufflepuff) and Dating: Never, ever date someone who knows you better than you know yourself.

"The thing is," Edmund went on, "today happens to be Tuesday - and I know you don't have Arithmancy till Wednesday."

New Rule #2 Regarding Miss S. Fawcett (Hufflepuff) and Dating: Never, ever date someone who knows your _timetable_ better than you do yourself.

"And the other thing is," he continued mercilessly, "your sister just happens to be moping round Ravenclaw Turret looking as if she dived into an ocean full of angst."

New Rule #3 Regarding Miss S. Fawcett (Hufflepuff) and Dating: Never, ever date someone who, apart from understanding the twin thing, spends much time in close proximity to Miss S. Fawcett (Ravenclaw).

"So, Sylvia," Edmund finished, "is there something you want to tell me?"

Hufflepuff loyalty is more than a double-edged sword. It's a morningstar with a heavy chain and lots of spikes. You can hold a double-edged sword by the hilt, but no matter where you hold a morningstar, you get spiked. There are only so many people at a time one can be loyal to. How was I supposed to be loyal to a) Sabina, twin sister, b) Archie, fellow Hufflepuff and c) Edmund, boyfriend?

I sighed and settled for the coward's way out. There is definitely a reason I'm not a Gryffindor.

"Look… Edmund, it's bloody complicated, all right? Do you mind if I… well, if I wait for a bit before spilling my guts? Like… a week or so? I need to figure this out for myself."

Edmund gave me this Look. At the risk of sounding even more like Maribelle Susannah from _Black Magic_, it gave me shivers. "Of course it's all right, Sylvia," he said gently. He touched my hair. "Just come to me when you're ready, okay?"

Bierce may say that kindness is merely a preface to ten volumes of exaction, but it definitely has advantages. Usually, kindness and cynics like me don't even belong in the same universe - but today it was just what I needed.

New Rule #4 Regarding Miss S. Fawcett (Hufflepuff) and Dating: Scrap all previous rules and keep, at all costs, nice understanding sensitive boyfriend.

* * *

I felt a lot better after my conversation with Edmund, though I felt a little guilty about it. Using girlfriendly tactics as an excuse to keep Edmund from learning that his brother's girlfriend was cheating on him was rather low of me. But it's not as if there was much I could do about the situation without breaking my promise to Sabina.

The Hufflepuff common room was rather quiet that night. There were only a few people in there - me, a group of fourth years studying in the corner, and Cedric Diggory, who was practicing some sort of charm, probably for the Triwizard Tournament.

Sighing, I picked up my quill. I had a pile of Care of Magical Creatures homework on my lap that wasn't going to get done on its own. Hagrid's homework was never particularly hard… but still, it was homework, and that was the principle of the thing. He'd given us a list of ten magical creatures and asked us to describe them - without the aid of any textbook. "An' don' think about breakin' tha' rule," he had said solemnly. "I got Perfessor McGonagall to put a jinx on those bits o' parchment ye've got, so I'll know if ye so much as touch a book."

The first creature on the list was a hippogriff. _A creature that is half horse, half griffin,_ I wrote dutifully. _The griffin itself is a compound creature, being half eagle, half lion. This makes the hippogriff half horse, one quarter lion and one quarter eagle._

We'd learned about eagles in Arithmancy when we did our wizarding economics unit. As well as being a bird, they were an outdated form of currency worth about sixteen Galleons.

I resisted crossing out '_one quarter eagle'_ and writing '_about four galleons_' instead.

Archie liked hippogriffs. He'd been livid for days when he found out that Hagrid had had some and he'd never seen them. Edmund had told me once that Archie had had a stuffed Hippogriff as a child called Mr. Potamus. He still had it, apparently, tucked away in a dark cupboard. Mrs. Stebbins had tried to throw it out numerous times, but Archie wouldn't let her.

I threw down my quill. I was obviously going to get no work done with Sabina's dirty secret hanging over my head.

"Something the matter, Sylvia?"

I looked up. Cedric Diggory was standing beside my chair - and he had… _two heads_?

"Cedric," I said, "what on earth happened to you?"

He laughed easily and flung himself down into the chair beside me. "I'm trying to teach myself the Bubble-Head Charm," he answered from the head on the left side. "For the Triwizard Tournament. Unfortunately, it's not going that well - I screwed up somewhere and managed to put the Double-Head Charm on myself instead."

I chuckled. "Well, you should be able to figure out the Bubble-Head Charm, now, surely - you've got two brains to do the thinking with."

"Ah, but it means I've got two heads to cover with the charm instead of one," Cedric replied. "I suppose you don't know how to reverse it?"

"'Fraid not."

"Pity. I'll just have to wait for it to wear off. Anyway, back to my original question. Is something the matter? I never picked you as the teen angst type, you know, but every time I come into the common room you seem to be deep in angsty thought."

I raised an eyebrow. "Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Observant."

He laid a hand over his heart. "I am, as Cho continues to tell me, a sensitive New Age guy, though I don't pretend to know what that means. So come on, spill your guts. You can tell Uncle Cedric."

I don't know what it was. Maybe the stress of keeping the secret had built up in me like a poison. Maybe the strangeness of sitting next to a two-headed man was driving me slightly bonkers. Maybe someone had put Veritaserum in my tea - it's an unsolved mystery. But the words exploded out of me like badly made potion out of a cauldron in Snape's dungeon.

"And now I don't know what to do, because whatever I do I'll hurt someone. I _promised_ Sabina, but I don't really have the _right_ to keep it from Archie, and Edmund will _murder_ me when he finds out I knew and I didn't tell him."

Cedric was looking at me with absolutely no expression all. I've never seen someone with a face (or two faces, in this case) that could be so effortlessly neutral. "Sounds like you're in a bit of a difficult situation," he commented.

"That's putting it mildly," I grumbled.

He leaned back. "I am suddenly very glad I'm an only child."

I sat up straighter. "Listen, you can't tell Archie, all right? I know he's in your dorm and all, but I _promised_ Sabina, and it'll absolutely kill him -"

Cedric held up his hands. "Your secret is safe with me, Sylvia," he said. "My lips are sealed - both sets of them. I shall be as silent as the grave. Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Thanks," I said gratefully. "I'm - it's just so confusing, you know? I don't know what the right thing to do is - and no matter what I do, someone is going to think I did the wrong thing."

"It is said," Cedric said seriously, taking his reading glasses out of his pocket and perching them on the end of his left-hand nose, "that righteousness is a sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries, but it appears to have been imperfectly expounded."

I stared. "You know _The Devil's Dictionary_?"

"But of course."

"You've _read_ it?" I squeaked.

"Indeed."

"You _know_ who Ambrose Bierce is?"

"I do."

"I want to shake your hand."

Cedric held out his hand. I took it in both of mine and shook it firmly. "All these years we've lived in the same cellar, Cedric," I said, "and I never knew."

He winked. "Well, we all have our little secrets. I don't own a copy, but I wish I did."

"I have it," I answered. "Edmund gave it to me for Christmas. I have _The Cynic's Dictionary_ as well. Have you read that one?"

"No. I'll have to borrow it from you one day - after all this Triwizard stuff is over."

"You know, Cedric, if I wasn't taken, I would be seriously tempted by your cynical reading ways."

He laughed easily. "Better not let old Stebbo - your Stebbo, that is - hear you say that. Or Cho, for that matter."

Cedric Diggory really was wasted on Cho Chang, I reflected after he (and his spare head) had left. He was snarky yet sensitive, she was shallow and superficial. Everything about her was… small. She had a small body, a small personality and a small mind. Giggle, giggle, flip hair, giggle, giggle, giggle with friends, giggle, giggle, moon at Cedric, giggle, giggle, rearrange schedule to allow for more giggling time…

In my earlier years at Hogwarts I'd often wondered how it came about that she, of supreme superficiality and no great mind, came to be in Ravenclaw - and it took me some years to figure out that there was actually nowhere else she could go. She was neither brave nor reckless, which ruled out Gryffindor; she was about as ambitious as I was giggly, which ruled out Slytherin; and her habit of picking a new boyfriend every two weeks definitely ruled out loyal Hufflepuff.

You know, it's a bloody pity that shallowness (especially when combined with a pretty face) is the root cause of chronic good health, high school popularity, appearance on the _Daily Prophet _bestseller lists and gainful employment on the WWN. The world is going downhill as fast as Sisyphus's rock.


End file.
